


six times enjolras wasn't expecting to spend valentine's with grantaire (and one time he did it on purpose)

by catharsia



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Lack of Communication, M/M, Oblivious Enjolras, Valentine's Day, all the amis are technically in it but very briefly, because enjoltaire, the best time to post a valentines fic is clearly april
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:42:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23494042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catharsia/pseuds/catharsia
Summary: Everything goes as planned, right up until the moment they get to the cinema and start queuing for popcorn and the person in the line before them does a slight double take and says, 'Apollo?''Grantaire,' says Enjolras in recognition. 'It's been -''A year. Exactly. Weird, huh?' Grantaire is smiling, an easy thing that seems to freeze in place a little as he looks at Combeferre. 'Who's this?'
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 189





	six times enjolras wasn't expecting to spend valentine's with grantaire (and one time he did it on purpose)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Seasonal Affair](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389765) by [tellthemstories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tellthemstories/pseuds/tellthemstories). 



VALENTINE'S DAY, TAKE 1

'I hate Valentine's Day,' says Enjolras, to no one in particular. He's entirely sober, bone tired from a string of mock exams, and standing at the edge of someone's living room, filled with sweat and smoke and heat, while his best friend gyrates with a stranger in the middle of a mass of horny students.

'Same,' says someone off at his right, and Enjolras blinks, head turning in an automatic attempt to find the voice's owner.

It turns out to be a guy leaning on the wall a less-than-generous metre away from him, all crooked nose and thin smirking lips and expressive eyes beneath a mass of magnificently unmaintained black curls. There's a hip flask in one hand and a joint in the other, but he's imitating sobriety better than anyone else Enjolras has come across in the last couple of hours. He smells of smoke and some warm spicy scent discernible even beneath the pungent air of the room, and there's green paint smeared irreverently across his fingertips.

'All of these idiots will go home tonight with someone they don't even find particularly attractive for a night of terrible sex in the name of _celebrating love_ , and then they'll wake up tomorrow morning and realise just how unromantic all the embarrassing things they did last night were, and they'll swear off alcohol and never talk to the person they hooked up with again, and act like the spirit of Cupid infected them when actually they just made a dumb, drunk decision and don't want to admit it. It's just an excuse for people to jump each other.'

Enjolras narrows his eyes. 'You're not _wrong_ , but there's also a clear issue with the way it's set up to pressurise people to fall in line with society's incredibly limited vision of what romantic love is. The whole point of love is it's unique to the individuals involved. You might as well rename Valentine's _heteronormativity day_ and be done with it.'

The stranger's face, inexplicably, is splitting into a wide grin. 'I'm Grantaire.'

'I'm Enjolras,' says Enjolras, lips twitching, and _Grantaire_ extends his hand.

Enjolras shakes it, tuneless music pulsing around them so loudly he has to lean in even closer to hear Grantaire's next words. 'So, what are you doing at a themed party for a holiday you hate so much, on your own and sober, Apollo?'

' _Enjolras_ ,' says Enjolras, wondering if Grantaire actually misheard him, but the smirk on Grantaire's lips tells him otherwise, so he decides not to consider that for too long and moves on. 'I'm not alone, technically. I got dragged here by a friend, but he met someone five minutes after we got here.'

'Sounds familiar,' says Grantaire, eyes swimming with pink and blue light as the disco light in the corner swings its beams over their heads. ' _I_ came here with a friend, but she found her dickhead of an ex and they already left together.'

'Well, if you're correct about Valentine' s Day, they'll have mediocre sex tonight and never talk to each other again,' Enjolras points out.

'No, the rule doesn't work the same way if you already know each other,' says Grantaire with the kind of seriousness only drunk people can achieve. 'Then it furthers the attachment because you think you've done something special and makes you ten times more likely to see each other again.'

Enjolras opens his mouth to reply as someone launches themselves into the side of his body. ' _There_ you are!' says Courfeyrac - or, more accurately, shouts. 'I met this _gorgeous_ guy but he left and it's totally unfair and - oh, hi, there,' he says to Grantaire, and Enjolras can't see Courf's face with him still hanging off his arm, but he can _hear_ the smirk in his voice that means he's jumping to (unfounded) conclusions. 'I'm Courfeyrac.'

'Grantaire,' says Grantaire, but his eyes stay caught on Enjolras's, amused.

'We should go home,' says Enjolras to Courfeyrac.

'No, we need to stay, so you can-'

'No, we should go,' interrupts Enjolras. 'We have a lecture tomorrow morning and your hangover is going to be horrific. '

'Ugh, fine,' Courfeyrac says. 'But only because you didn't want to come out in the first place and making you stay would be mean... Enjolras _never_ goes out, it's ridiculous,' he tells Grantaire. Enjolras scowls and reaches an arm around Courf to stabilise him.

'Really?' says Grantaire, teasingly.

'He hates parties because too many people hit on him,' says Courfeyrac dreamily. That's completely untrue, actually, but Enjolras has long since given up trying to decipher the motivations behind the things Courf says when he's drunk. He doesn't deign to reply, just turns his body to catch Courf as he begins to slide to the floor.

'Bye, Grantaire!' calls Courfeyrac as Enjolras assists him from the room, vaguely wondering if this whole night has been a fever dream.

In the morning, unlike a fever dream, it's weirdly clear in his memory.

VALENTINE'S DAY, TAKE 2

By the time Valentine's Day comes around this year, Enjolras has laid plans that prevent anyone from dragging him out to any form of party or club or bar.

'I'm going to the cinema,' he tells Courfeyrac, who brightens immediately. 'On a date?'

'No,' Enjolras says, and maybe he sounds little smug. 'With Ferre.'

Combeferre isn't opposed to Valentine's Day, but his interest in partying, never remotely extensive, had shrivelled and died halfway through Michaelmas in first year. He's all too happy to join Enjolras's scheme.

'God, I can't believe you two,' whines Courfeyrac. 'Who am I supposed to go out with?'

'Marius,' says Enjolras sweetly, and hangs up his phone.

Everything goes as planned, right up until the moment they get to the cinema and start queuing for popcorn and the person in the line before them does a slight double take and says, 'Apollo?'

Combeferre, bemused, is standing in front of him, and so it takes Enjolras a moment to look around him and catch sight of - the man. He's wearing a leather jacket, this time, black with bold painted designs. There's a paperclip through his ear lobe, and Enjolras doesn't know if that's new or not, but generally he looks remarkably unchanged from Enjolras's - slightly hazy - memory.

'Grantaire,' says Enjolras in recognition. 'It's been -'

'A year. Exactly. Weird, huh?' Grantaire is smiling, an easy thing that seems to freeze in place a little as he looks at Combeferre. 'Who's this?'

'This is my friend. Combeferre,' says Enjolras, and catches sight of someone else standing just behind Grantaire, a girl with long hair dyed forest green and growing out dark at the roots, bones uncomfortably prominent but muscles defined, watching them with an inscrutable look on her face.

'This is Eponine,' says Grantaire, and Eponine gives them a small smile and adds quickly, in voice that is low and the opposite of soft, 'We are _not_ on a date, just to get that out of the way.'

'Neither are we,' Enjolras adds, quickly.

'So, how do you two know each other?' says Combeferre, eyes flicking between Enjolras and Grantaire. He looks entirely too innocent for some reason, and Enjolras realises that he's miscalculated and Combeferre is just as much a terrible person to be around as Courfeyrac on Valentine's Day.

'We - met briefly. At a thing Courf and I went to last year.'

'Right,' says Combeferre, politely.

When they get to the actual viewing screen, the rows of seats are largely empty. He's just sat down with Ferre when he feels the entire row lean back ever so slightly, and then there's the sound of someone climbing down into the chair next to him. 'I figured we may as well sit together, considering no one else is here,' says Grantaire. Enjolras looks up to see Eponine walk around the row to gingerly take the seat next to Combeferre, who is closest to the aisle. Eponine is sensible, apparently.

'So, what have you been up to in the past year?' says Grantaire.

'Avoiding more house parties,' Enjolras says.

'I don't doubt that.' Grantaire grins.

'What about you?'

'Well,' says Grantaire, dropping his voice, 'I convinced Ep to drop her shitty boyfriend, again. She was the friend I was there with, he was the ex. They got back together for a few months, but it's fine now. Did I mention him to you? I think I did.'

'You did,' Enjolras agrees, and that's about as far as they get before the film starts.

It's a rom com, in a predictable turn of events. It probably would've been even more predictable if Enjolras had checked which film he'd brought tickets to.

About half an hour through, he's lost interest, because the male love interest is obviously an irredeemable asshole who Enjolras is definitely not interested in watching get the girl. About forty five minutes in, he hears a sucking noise behind him, and turns his head to see two of the five other people in the cinema eating each others' faces on a single back row seat.

About fifty minutes in, he manages to reverse engineer Grantaire's route into the row and jump over the back of his seat to leave the room, hoping Ferre and the others will assume he's gone to the bathroom, fully intending to hang out in the lobby and find something to read on his phone until the film is through.

He's only just found a comfortable sofa down the corridor between screen rooms when he hears someone's footsteps coming towards him, and looks up to see Grantaire approaching.

'Not enjoying Ryan and Lucinda's epic office romance story?'

'I think it was the couple behind us that really killed it,' Enjolras admits, and Grantaire laughs as he sits down beside him, then promptly flops down to lie on his back. It's a very large sofa, of the flat and commercial variety. 'They were _distressingly_ loud, I'll admit.'

'Was that why _you_ left?'

'No, I thought I'd give Eponine and your friend some space. They're getting on very well, you know. I'm waiting to see if it's just the Valentine compulsion to jump a stranger, or a bona fide case of opposites attract.'

'I can't imagine Ferre giving into the _Valentine compulsion_ ,' Enjolras says. 'Were they really? I didn't notice.'

'You're so oblivious it's cute, Apollo,' says Grantaire. 'What do you study?'

Enjolras blinks. 'What?'

Grantaire spreads his hands, still flat on his back. 'I basically know nothing about you. What subject?'

'HSPS, second year. What about you?'

'Fuck, that was predictable. I'm doing Fine Art. Aiming for unemployability and all that.'

'How am I predictable?'

'The first thing you said to me was a rant about heteronormative commercial holidays. You're either into politics, or _really_ gay.'

'Try both,' says Enjolras, sounding a lot more casual than he feels. 'The first thing you said to me was a pretentious rant about mediocre sex, and you're taking art? _That's_ predictable.'

'Ouch, that hurts, Apollo. I hoped the painted jacket was the bigger giveaway.'

'Did you paint it from scratch?' Enjolras asks, diverted. 'That's... it looks good.'

'Thanks,' says Grantaire, looking momentarily the opposite of self assured as a tiny smile twitches across his lips. 'It really isn't that hard to do. I wish my whole degree was painting jackets.'

They stay on that sofa for another half hour until the film is done. Enjolras doesn't even realise it's ended until Combeferre and Eponine emerge, identical shy smiles across their faces, and Enjolras realises with vague surprise that Grantaire is completely correct about them.

They linger in parting at the large glass doors, Combeferre pausing to exchange his number with Eponine, and it's at that moment that Grantaire says, 'I enjoyed not watching a shitty rom com with you.'

'I enjoyed it too,' Enjolras admits. And, fuck, it's true. He came here tonight hoping to avoid socialising and hang out with Ferre: he's failed spectacularly at both of those, but he's _happy_ , feels relaxed in a way that's entirely incongruous to the middle of a stressful term, on a day he dislikes on principle.

'Want to hang out again? I mean, we could always wait another year if you prefer, but-'

'No, I'd like that,' says Enjolras.

And they do.

VALENTINE'S DAY, TAKE 3

Enjolras receives a call on the morning of Valentine's Day that he nearly misses because he's writing an essay. He finally snatches his mobile up just as it starts to go to voicemail, hastily saying, 'Yes?' without checking caller ID.

'Hey, Apollo,' says a now-familiar voice.

Enjolras blinks. 'Grantaire, hi.'

'So, Eponine and Combeferre are going on a date later. And, seeing as it's absolutely your fault that she met him and I can't hang out with her today... want to cheat the system and take advantage of a couples' discount at a restaurant somewhere?'

'It's just as much your fault as mine,' Enjolras points out. 'I can't hang out with Ferre, either.'

'So...?'

'So we're splitting the bill,' says Enjolras.

They choose a restaurant downtown for no particular reason other than that their discount is running especially high. They meet there at 1:30 (or, Enjolras gets there at 1:28, Grantaire at 1:35).

'I've never been here before,' Enjolras admits.

'Me neither,' says Grantaire, looking entirely relaxed. 'So neither of us have any clue what to order.'

'Wait,' says Enjolras, half-stifling a laugh. 'Look, they have a Couples' Platter.'

Grantaire makes some kind of noise at the back of his throat which Enjolras vaguely attributes to him choking on his drink. 'You want to order that? I mean... why not?'

'It fits the objective,' Enjolras points out. 'Of making fun of the commercialisation... I mean, we don't have to -'

'No, I'm down,' says Grantaire quickly. 'I, uh, love making fun of commercialisation.'

The Couples' Platter is actually kind of good, ignoring the fact that the melon wrapped in parma ham is cut into heart shapes ('Why do they think _melon_ is a romantic food?' asks Grantaire) and there are lumps of something weirdly quivering and pink on the side which Enjolras predicts is dyed cheese and Grantaire predicts is an illegal aphrodisiac. Neither of them try it.

They do end up splitting the bill, but neither of them move to get up once they've paid.

'Do you really hate Valentine's Day, Enjolras? Even when it means we get free rosé of that quality?'

'I didn't drink it,' Enjolras points out.

'And I appreciated getting both of our complimentary glasses.'

Enjolras bites his lip, frowning.

'Don't,' Grantaire warns.

'What?'

'I can tell what you're going to say. I should drink less, it's not healthy - I know all of that -'

'Actually, while that's all true,' Enjolras says, feeling vaguely indignant, 'I was going to say maybe you have a point about the deals.'

Grantaire looks entirely confused for a moment before he bursts out laughing.

VALENTINE'S DAY, TAKE 4

'I have the _perfect_ solution to Valentine's Day,' Courfeyrac announces, coming into the kitchen one morning to find Enjolras hunched over a pot of coffee, eyes entirely unfocused and curls undefined and floating in a mass of hazy gold around his head. 'We'll invite our friends over here. We're all single bastards, and you won't even have to go out, and we can order pizza and mock capitalist institutions to your heart's content.'

'Pizza companies _are_ capitalist institutions,' Enjolras points out. 'And Ferre isn't a single bastard.'

Courfeyrac's lips twist, which Enjolras registers even through his state of half-awareness, and feels bad about. 'Yeah, well, he's obviously going on a date with Eponine, so he won't be around no matter what we do.'

Enjolras and Courfeyrac have been sharing an apartment since September due to no university accommodation being offered in their final year. It's mostly a pretty great arrangement, except for neither of them ever remembering to order food or other things essential to sustaining life, so Ferre comes by at least a couple times a week and it's during these visits that Enjolras has become aware that Courfeyrac is something close to in love with Combeferre.

It's the kind of situation that Enjolras has no idea how to help with, and he really hates that feeling of being _out of control_ and of having no way to effect a situation which is hurting one of his closest friends so badly. It occurs to him that this suggestion of a Valentine's friend party may just be Courfeyrac's way of trying to cope, and it's that thought more than anything which leads him to relent. 'Okay, fine, we can do it.'

He knows, right from the start, that more people will come than are invited. The people they actually message are Marius, Jehan, Joly, Feuilly and Grantaire. Jehan shows up with a girl called Musichetta in tow, Feuilly with two guys named Bahorel and Bossuet that Enjolras kind of knows. Marius arrives apologetically late with his girlfriend Cosette, which is absolutely not in the spirit of the Platonic Valentine's Party. Grantaire and Joly manage to make it on their own.

'This is doomed,' Grantaire tells Enjolras as he arrives. 'Half of these idiots will end up hooking up. Most of them already know each other, which makes it worse.'

'Because, according to the laws of Valentine's Day, it means they'll continue seeing each other?'

'Exactly! We are going to have _so_ many friends dating each other after this. It'll be a nightmare.'

True to Grantaire's word, Joly and Bossuet hit it off early on, then both start flirting with Musichetta, and the three disappear shortly after the pizza arrives in pink boxes.

Courfeyrac and Jehan go, then, both drunk to gentle incoherency. Enjolras watches Courf's back as they disappear from sight with mounting concern.

Then it's just six of them:Grantaire, Feuilly, Bahorel, Cosette and Marius. Unbelievably, the latter two seem entirely content to lie in each others' arms chastely in the middle of the living room while all their friends leave for spontaneous hook ups around them.

That doesn't mean Marius isn't embarrassingly drunk, though. As he starts attempting to recite a sonnet to Cosette that he's apparently written himself, Enjolras makes a break for the fire escape that perhaps isn't as discreet as he hopes, because he hasn't even shut the door fully before Grantaire is pushing it open from the other side.

'You are _not_ allowed to abandon me in there, Apollo.'

'It's dire,' Enjolras admits, leaning against the freezing metal railing as Grantaire slips out next to him. 'I don't know why Cosette puts up with him sometimes.'

'Because she loves him?'

'I thought you were a cynic.'

'About Valentine's Day hook ups? Sure. And I'll argue about the efficacy of protest as a means of change with you all day, but I'm an _artist_ , Apollo. It's practically a requirement for me to have romanticism as one of many character failings.'

'Why do you call me that?' Enjolras asks, and Grantaire stills.

'...Apollo?'

'Yes.'

'You've never asked me about it before.'

Enjolras turns away from the railing to face him. They're close, with just enough space for another person to fit between them: it reminds him strangely of when they first met. Grantaire's eyes, normally a warm brown, are velvet-dark in the thin moonlight, his breath hazing over from the cold instead of a cigarette.

'I'm asking now.'

Grantaire pushes his lips out into a tiny pout. It looks strangely melancholy. 'If you don't know, I can't tell you.'

Enjolras, uncharacteristically, doesn't push that further.

'What are you going to do next year?' he asks eventually. It feels painfully banal.

Grantaire shrugs. 'I have no fucking idea. Try to get some paintings to exhibit, fail, take a job at a café to pay rent.'

'You don't _know_ they'll fail.'

'Do you have any idea how hard it is to get by as an artist, let alone the year after graduation? I'm being realistic.'

'No,' Enjolras argues, 'you're being defeatist. Your paintings are great.'

'And what will you be doing? Internships, job opportunities, climbing the path to political renown?'

'One internship, in Paris.' Enjolras says stiffly. 'Then we'll see.'

'In Paris, huh?' Is there a catch on Grantaire's voice? If there is, it must be the chill of the night: the hollow breeze swirling up over the metal stairway.

'Yes. I'll be gone for two months, maybe three, depending on how things turn out.'

'Oh, I'm sure they'll turn out just fine.' Grantaire is pulling down the handle to reopen the door, to return to the inside. 'Happy Valentine's Day, Enjolras.'

Enjolras doesn't quite know if they've argued or not. When he goes back inside, there's no one except Marius and Cosette.

VALENTINE'S DAY, TAKE 5

Enjolras is sitting in a booth in the same restaurant he'd first visited with Grantaire two years ago to the day, when he hears Grantaire's voice and wonders if he's hallucinating.

'Welcome to the Musain. Are you ready to take your order?'

'Fuck, _Grantaire_?' says Courfeyrac, who is sitting at the other end of Enjolras's booth. 'I didn't know you worked here! This is so cool.'

'Hi, Courf,' says Grantaire, and very pointedly does not acknowledge Enjolras.

Enjolras winces. They haven't spoken in eight, probably nine months, since Enjolras left for Paris, and the truth is he doesn't particularly even know why, doesn't know what went wrong except that after their talk on the fire escape they'd seemed unable to talk without it devolving into argument, until one day they both just - hadn't reached out. Enjolras had gone abroad and that had been that, even after he'd returned.

The fact that Grantaire has a job here is news to him, too.

'Are you ready to order?' Grantaire is repeating.

Enjolras can see Courfeyrac's eyes flickering between the two of them. He's always been entirely too perceptive for his own good, except about his own personal life. Combeferre and Eponine have been broken up for nearly a year, now, and Enjolras _knows_ Combeferre is interested but neither he or Courf will make a move. Enjolras is starting to think he'll have to engineer something to get the two of them together, which is borderline ridiculous.

'I'll have the caprese,' he says, and Grantaire notes it without looking at him.

'Could I get the chicken burger?' says Courfeyrac.

As soon as Grantaire leaves, he's hissing, 'Dude, what the fuck?'

'I don't know,' Enjolras says wearily. 'We haven't talked in a while.'

'Well, fucking talk to him! You look like a pair of wet kittens!' Courfeyrac snaps.

Once they're done with their meal, Courf helpfully rises to go to the bathroom, and Enjolras is left alone to deal with the bill and bite his lip. 'Grantaire, what time does your shift end?'

'Why?' says Grantaire, sounding bored. Enjolras grits his teeth and tries again.

'I need to talk to you.'

'You couldn't have done that any time in the last eight months?' Grantaire finally looks him in the eye. 'I get off at three.'

He goes back towards the kitchens without another word, and Enjolras refrains from chewing at his lip. He's left with just over an hour to kill time, which he does by browsing a local charity bookstore. When he returns at 2:56, Grantaire is there and waiting for him.

'I'm sorry,' Enjolras says, unsure of what else to say.

'I'm sorry, too,' Grantaire admits after a moment.

Enjolras frowns. 'Why?'

'It wasn't your fault and more than it was mine that we didn't speak for ages, and I took it all out on you.'

'I don't _know_ why we weren't speaking,' Enjolras confesses, feeling hopelessly out of his depth. 'But it wasn't ever my intention. We were just fighting all the time... fuck.'

'Can we not do that again?' Grantaire asks after a while. 'Or at least try not to? Because now I'm done being a bitch I really, really missed you.'

'I missed you, too,' Enjolras says with a fervour that should probably be embarrassing, and when Grantaire's arms come down around his, he inhales his scent, feels the slightly rough texture of his jacket against his cheek, and feels utterly buoyant.

'Happy Valentine's Day,' he says after a moment, muffled into Grantaire's chest, and feels Grantaire laugh. 'Happy Valentine's Day, Apollo.'

VALENTINE'S DAY, TAKE 6

Enjolras wakes up in his apartment on Valentine's Day this year and proceeds about his day fairly normally. Courfeyrac moved out six months ago, into Combeferre's flat, and Enjolras hasn't taken a new flatmate yet: the rent is low, and the space is relatively small, and he's happy.

Unfortunately, this means there is no one at all checking there is food in the fridge.

He discovers at about six o'clock that he has entirely run out of anything resembling ingredients to assemble a meal, or any existing frozen meals. He's resigning himself to the idea of a takeout when he suddenly checks the date and remembers.

_February 14th._

A minute later, he's on the phone. 'Grantaire?'

'Hey, Apollo. I was wondering when you'd call.'

'Yes, well - I also don't have any food.'

There's a moment's silence over the line, and then Grantaire is speaking again. 'You are an _idiot_. You have literally zero basic survival skills, honestly. I'm coming over with aid.'

'I said I don't have _food_ , not that I broke a bone,' Enjolras protests, but Grantaire has hung up the phone.

When he arrives half an hour later, it's laden with bags of pasta and tomatoes and mushrooms and packs of bacon.

'Peel these,' he instructs Enjolras, tossing him the mushrooms while he pulls open a cupboard and pulls out a saucepan than Enjolras hadn't even known he owned.

The meal ends up being very good.

'I am making you start _shopping_ ,' Grantaire says when they're washing up. 'And cooking.'

'If you moved in with me I wouldn't have to,' Enjolras says almost without thinking.

Grantaire drops the tea towel. 'What?'

'Move in with me,' says Enjolras more confidently. 'I have a spare room. Your lease is up soon, right? It makes sense.'

'Right,' Grantaire mutters. 'Are you asking because it _makes sense_ or for any other reason? Please think about it, Apollo.'

He's avoiding Enjolras's gaze, at first, and then suddenly his eyes have caught Enjolras, and Enjolras can't look away. Grantaire is taller than him, by maybe four inches, and he doesn't even normally notice it but they're only the width of the kitchen apart and it's small, designed to be compact, and if Enjolras took a long stride forwards -

'Why do you call me that?'

Grantaire's face seems to twist up and not quite settle in the same place when it drops again. 'You know why. '

Enjolras can't remember if he's supposed to be breathing.

'You're annoyingly attractive,' Grantaire says after a moment, and he's smiling but he definitely isn't happy. 'Like really, ridiculously beautiful, and spending time with you is like being in the fucking sun, and - I love you. I've been gone on you since we met, pretty much, but you're the most oblivious person I've ever met. So - fuck.'

Enjolras is unable to look away as Grantaire's face moves closer and closer, right up until the moment his lips are on Enjolras's, and he closes his eyes. It's a surprisingly chaste kiss; sweet, for all the filthy things he's heard Grantaire say over the years. It tastes like warmth and spice and their fucking tomato sauce and Enjolras would drink in this feeling in liquid form every day for the rest of his life if he could.

He doesn't realise he hasn't moved to kiss him back until Grantaire has already pulled away.

'You see?' Grantaire says quietly. 'I can't do this anymore, Enjolras. I can't love you and not _know_ , I can't... I talked to Courf and Eponine and Ferre and even _Marius_ , you know? And they all told me to give it time, and I've given it time, we've spent the last six Valentine's Days together and you've given me nothing. If you tell me it never meant anything to you I'll leave right now, okay? I'd understand, I just need to know. I can't wait around for you forever.'

Enjolras cannot breathe. He's still staring at Grantaire, eyes glued to his: he realises they are filling with something horribly like tears but he can't blink, either.

He doesn't speak.

'Okay,' says Grantaire, finally, and gives a tiny, bitter laugh. 'I think I get it.'

And then he's gone.

VALENTINE'S DAY, TAKE 7

Enjolras wakes up early. He has a case file to go through, some work he's preparing for the senior partner at his law firm to check over. It's unusually warm for mid February, although there are clouds gathering over the horizon.

By lunchtime, the sun is poking through holes in a patchy sea of grey. Enjolras eats a ready-bought salad from his cupboard, and goes back to his stack of papers and his laptop.

At six in the evening, he finally finishes with his work and begins to boil a couple of eggs and toast a piece of bread. The clouds have fully grown together outside by now, shifted from smooth pale grey to unnaturally dark and heavy in the semi-gloom, and he can hear thunder overhead as he sits down to eat.

It's as he's washing up that he suddenly freezes, rigid. The muscles of his hand stop working and he feels the soapy plate clutched between his fingers slide out between them and crash open on the tiles, fragments of white pottery flying outwards in a mess of shards and larger pieces.

He snatches his phone out from his pocket and checks the date. February 14th.

He's moving before he's even really thought it through. He's certainly out the door before it's occurred to him that he's only wearing a cheap red hoodie which is certainly not waterproof (and that, for that matter, neither are his skinny black jeans or trainers). But his flat is on the twelfth floor and getting the lift back up and down would take far too long, so he grits his teeth and pushes open the glass door to the building just as a veritable deluge of water cascades down the drainpipe of the building opposite.

It occurs to him that this is ridiculous.

But his legs don't stop moving and then he has been walking for fifteen minutes and the water is already soaked through his clothes and crawling into his pores, and he's over halfway there and there's no point turning back.

By the time he reaches the apartment building he feels like he's been swimming in a pool, fully clothed. He presses the buzzer and waits.

'I'm here,' he says, as there's the sound of someone picking up the intercom, as he knew they would. 'Please let me in?'

Grantaire opens the door to his apartment three minutes later and barely looks surprised to see Enjolras standing there in the state he's in. 'Take your hoodie off,' he says, and Enjolras's T-shirt, now welded together with it, comes off too; Grantaire pinches the bridge of his nose and rolls his eyes as he pulls Enjolras inside. 'Get in the shower. I'll find you clothes.'

Enjolras gets into a shower and runs the water so hot that in his freezing state it's probably dangerous. When he emerges as soon as he can humanly manage, there are a pile of clothes outside the door: a shirt, hoodie, sweatpants. They're all too big for him, too long and much too broad, but he pulls them all on and double rolls the cuffs of the hoodie and sweatpants.

Grantaire is in the lounge area. His lips give an involuntary twitch when he sees Enjolras, before that is broken by a frustrated sigh.

'I cannot believe how stupid you are. What did you think this was, The Notebook?'

'I've never seen it,' says Enjolras, relieved to discover his voice coming out vaguely normally.

Grantaire sighs again. 'Of course you haven't.'

There's a long pause.

'Why are you here?' says Grantaire.

'I love you,' Enjolras says helplessly.

Grantaire looks pained. 'You're going to have to explain better than that.'

Enjolras pushes his hands together inside the pocket of the hoodie. 'I didn't know what to do, after last year. I genuinely didn't know what I felt. And then - we were still friends, but it was so casual. And I realised I really hated it. And you went on those dates with that guy in July, and I hated him too.'

'I think everyone could tell,' Grantaire says with a raised eyebrow. 'You scared him off very effectively.'

'I'm _sorry_ ,' says Enjolras, and it's something he barely ever says but he surprises himself with how genuine he sounds. 'For not realising how I felt. And for not giving you an answer.'

'I thought I'd messed everything up,' Grantaire says quietly. 'Last year. You looked so fucking freaked out when I kissed you, and you wouldn't _say_ anything... I felt like I'd molested you or something, fuck.'

Enjolras laughs a little desperately. 'That really, really wasn't the case.'

'So you're saying... if I did it again, you'd kiss me back?'

Enjolras nods quickly, sharply.

'Prove it,' breathes Grantaire, and then Enjolras closes the distance between them in two long steps and kisses him.

Grantaire responds instantly. His hand winds around Enjolras's waist, other hand rising to cup his cheek as Enjolras's arms wind around the back of his neck. They're both leaning on each other, scarcely standing, in mutual support, and Enjolras's tongue is sliding into his mouth and it's ridiculously perfect and he can't believe he has wasted six years without this sensation.

'I love you,' Enjolras gasps as they break apart for air, and Grantaire says, 'I know, I know, I love you too, Enjolras,' and then they're kissing again and Enjolras really never wants to fucking stop this ever again.

'We're both so _stupid_ ,' he gasps out, and then suddenly they're both laughing and can no longer hold each other up, missing the sofa and collapsing on the floor next to it, Grantaire falling first and Enjolras into his lap.

'You realise I'm never letting you forget this, right?' Grantaire says, lips dark and red and already looking faintly swollen, hair even more of a wild black cloud than usual. 'Seven _years_ , Jesus Christ.'

Enjolras is biting a trail of kisses along his neck. 'I'll make it up to you.'

Grantaire is gazing at him like he's never seen him before, eyes travelling over his mouth and eyes and collarbone and navel (when did he lose the hoodie and the shirt?)

'You're so beautiful.'

'I know,' Enjolras says impatiently, fingers pushing open the button of Grantaire's jeans, and the look that Grantaire gives him is probably dangerous because a fire could start in the kitchen right now and Enjolras doubts he'd care to move.

'Hey, Enjolras?' Grantaire says later, when they're tangled in bed together.

'Mhm?'

'Happy Valentine's Day.'

'Maybe they're not so bad,' Enjolras murmurs onto his chest.

'They're kind of my favourite day of the year,' Grantaire admits. 'Still, we're not waiting another year to continue this, are we? And if you say yes, even as a joke, I swear-'

'Of course we're not waiting a _year_ ,' Enjolras says, rolling over so his face is directly above Grantaire's. 'I was going to say we should continue this _right now_.'

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was completely inspired by 'a seasonal affair' by tellthemstories, which is pretty much just a superior version of this one and which you should absolutely check out because it's incredibly well written. 
> 
> hope you are all healthy and doing okay + thanks for reading <3


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